High temperature furnaces for specialized applications requiring close temperature control are either not available or extremely expensive and difficult to produce. For precise temperature control a means for accurately measuring internal furnace temperature is required. Up to now, platinum thermocouples have been required for very high temperatures that can cost upwards of $4,000.
It would therefore be desirable to have a furnace that is less costly requiring sensors having lower temperature requirements.
Further, there has been some effort at using microwaves for high temperature furnaces. There has been a significant problem with this approach in that there have not been microwave susceptors available having a sufficiently low cost to make the idea practical. Microwave susceptors which are stable and capable of absorbing energy from room temperature to the maximum use temperature of this design without deteriorating or breaking and which can be produced in sizes large enough to provide a reasonable work space were previously unidentified.
In addition, it has been very difficult to process articles and materials in high temperature furnaces in a continuous operation. It is therefore an object of this invention to address problems associated with continuous high temperature furnaces as well as overcoming problems previously described.